Nagpur: Some CBSE schools in the city are drawing up plans to reopen from June 1, during nautapa, considered the most punishing stretch of summer, raising concern over exposing children to extreme weather conditions.While the reopening is still “proposed”, specially for Class 9 and 10 students, it comes at a time when temperatures in Nagpur are already hovering above 45 degrees Celsius. Weather forecasters have warned that intense dry heat is likely to persist for at least another week.General guidelines for schools in Vidarbha mandate reopening only after June 26, a norm that evolved to account for the region’s intense summer heat across districts including Nagpur, Chandrapur, Wardha, Bhandara and Gadchiroli. CBSE schools, however, have defied this convention for years, with many reopening around June 15. This year, the early reopening debate produced a legal intervention, but one that stopped well short of CBSE schools. When state board schools were scheduled to reopen on June 15, teachers associations moved the Nagpur bench of Bombay high court, which questioned the logic of reopening amid continuing heatwave conditions and secured a delay. CBSE institutions were not part of the petition and remain entirely outside its scope.The state education department’s local office has consistently maintained that it does not interfere in the academic calendars of other boards, effectively giving CBSE institutions a free pass to set their own reopening dates. An education official, who did not wish to be identified, said, “We have to follow the rules. Earlier, our own department said reopen schools in Vidarbha on June 15 itself, so we had to obey. But now that it has been challenged in court, that condition may go and we will implement whatever decision is taken. All these decisions are taken at the state level.”With no similar legal challenge against CBSE schools in sight, several institutions may proceed with early reopening. The problem is particularly acute during afternoon dispersal, when students are exposed to peak heat on roads and in school buses.
